Trading Hold Music For Silence
by scullyseviltwin
Summary: Nothing he's bothered trying to imagine has prepared him for any of this. Elliot/Olivia


This isn't beta'd; not even close, fair warning!

He doesn't think that it's fair to spend his whole life with the almost-absolute only to stumble across the real absolute just as he's rolled around the age when a mid-life crisis is deemed appropriate. It just so happens that he realizes that everything is going to hell around the time he turns forty-five, and the only person he's actually supposed to be with is slowly pulling away.

And it isn't fucking fair. And it's not her fault.

Two blinks and a half-smile and she gets him better than anyone ever has. It's awful, really, how much he wants her, intermittently, and how much he's willing to give all the time.

That's it, a coffee with cream and he's ready to give up, give in, give it all and touch her. But as her quick fingers grab a packet of sugar and shake (one, two, three, rip) he can't imagine her:

making him the very same coffee in the morning

waking up beside him

taking a shower while he tries to find the ten o'clock news

grocery shopping

Well, he can imagine these things (so normal, they're such normal things) but he doesn't because the Catholic in him won't let his mind process any of this fully. He's married and that's enough to keep his eyes down and his will focused on working things out with Kathy.

---

It's one of those continuing education lectures (super glue fuming in the field) and neither one of them would want to be there but the AC in the squad is broken and it's just paperwork waiting for them back at the one six. It's taxing, just to pay attention because the sun outside is so bright and he's craving soft serve and he can smell her next to him, perspiring.

Elliot feels his resolve slip and he tears a piece off of his legal pad, scrawls a message: "Fake a page? Ice cream."

Olivia doesn't even glance at him, but grabs the cell off of her hip and stares at it convincingly; god, he loves it. As she stands, she holds her phone out to the presenter in a silent explanation and they both slink out (like they've never seen CSU super glue fume before, come on) onto the hot summer pavement.

"Snow cones," she says as she slips her sunglass over her eyes and she's gone before she can catch his giddy, delighted grin.

---

"How long has it been since you slept in your own bed?" It breaks the silence, not in the way he expected it to. His skin, bones, muscle are tight, anticipating a recoil he can only imagine. Olivia's got a wrath that... she's got wrath.

Honestly, he doesn't want to think about her in her bed, because that will lead to other thoughts that aren't conducive to him being here.

It's maybe the 12th or the 13th or one of the other thousand weekdays that bleed (out) together; not a particularly horrid case, nothing particularly horrifying but he finds her alone in the crib , watches her pretend to snag sleep. She falls apart more now, and he knows too much and not enough about that chip on her shoulder.

He thinks about his own shoulders and how they're more than enough to support her.

His words are smooth and subtle and harbor none of the exhaustion in his eyes. (Always, they always blink slower two floors above the squad, like there's an altitude change, five floors up, instead of three.) His movements are slow, slower than he intends but he's in the quiet here, so everything is different between them.

Olivia only shifts her gaze up to him, "I know I can talk to you." Her words are matter-of-fact-don't-interrupt, "But just not now."

What is there to do but smile, a caring gesture (carry that weight, Stabler...) and bid her goodnight. It's only midnight on a day in October but it feels like New Year's Day, like he's promised himself something new, but has come up empty, like every other time.

He hates that they only get like this when things have gone wrong somehow, but perhaps that's only because they know that the other is the only one who can help them through.

Maybe, maybe that means something. Too many maybes.

The hand Elliot wishes he'd laid on her shoulder itches the entire way home.

---

Warner vomits at a scene. Rape, murder... overkill and it almost get to him too.

Olivia puts an arm around her first.

It's too sunny for this, so he walks up, wraps his arm around Melinda and leads her to his car. There's coffee waiting and he talks with the medical examiner, watches Olivia hurt equally, out of the corner of his eye.

That other shoe is just waiting in the wings to create an earthquake. Not long, not long now.

---

Too many things at once, he realizes, when they're out for drinks one evening.

Fin's a talker, and Elliot likes that, because he likes being surprised by his coworkers and though it's been eight years (eight? he can't remember, he's four deep) and he's never heard Fin talk about politics. John stews to his left; he knows not to interject with his crackpot theories anymore.

It makes for a smoother after-work drink.

An after work multiple-drink outing, really.

The day, the week, the past few months weighing on all of them, because something in the air has made the predators duck their heads out of their hiding and they all dislike the new ADA. She's like Casey, but Greylek doesn't have that filter. She's too concerned about her career, not concerned enough about the victims, too crisp, starched.

It grates on their nerves and they can't do anything about it; Don had declined the invitation for drinks for that reason, he knew they were going to talk about her. And he's the captain, and he can't chime in. But he wants to, they all know it.

And so does Olivia, and she makes up for his absence. She's crass and grasps her pint class tightly and leans into John when she wants to make a point. When they all agree, they all lean into the table and when they're pondering they all sit back and Elliot watches each one of his coworkers and wonders what they look like on their couches at home.

John doesn't sit on a couch, he reasons. A straight-back chair that keeps him up and alert, ready for anything.

Fin sleeps, Elliot surmises. He's got his demons, but there's nothing that a good sleep won't make better, and there's nothing else he spends his money on other than creature comforts.

He can't picture Olivia at home, and it bothers him... too much. Really, it something he needs to stop thinking about.

---

She's seeing this guy, Tom. He's an insurance adjuster, which Elliot thinks is boring and he tells her so, in that off beat tone that means he's being serious but he really doesn't want her to know that.

They have this thing going, where she knows that he doesn't like the people she dates. In general. Maybe she knows why but he hopes she doesn't but ever since Kurt Moss, she tells him when she's with someone.

Last week-she tells him after screwing her lips up in distaste due to his 'boring' comment-they went upstate and they jumped out of a plane together. "It was exhilarating, to just *fall* like that, nothing stopping you." Their morning coffee is sitting on the desk between them and she steals a sip. "Should try it sometime, El."

There's something about falling that he knows. He's been doing it for years.

---

Olivia's lips are chapped (oh fuck) when he kisses her. And he kisses her. There's no confusing that, because it's she that freezes as he moves in. It's August and her hair has soaked up all of the moisture, so it's difficult to fist it at all. Elliot settles for a hand along the side of her neck.

They're both perspiring, but he can feel hers, slick and sweet and it sets him off shaking.

Nothing he's bothered trying to imagine has prepared him for any of this.

He'll remember this forever, if she lets him, if this is all he gets. The way she hesitated for just a moment before pressing back into him. The way she was now pressing her hand into his and holding on for dear life, like they're going to be separated at any given moment. And he can feel her heart beat through her jacket (or was that his?) and it's so powerful he has to stop, forehead against hers.

All she says is, "It isn't fair."

He agrees.


End file.
